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Nanotechnology To Replace Conventional CMOS

Posted by timothy on from the until-there's-an-ipod-nano dept.

neutron_p writes "There is a lot of hype around nanotechnology these days, but some things are going to work in a near future anyway. IMEC announced a program aimed at seeking alternatives to the current CMOS manufacturing technologies using nanotechnologies. IMEC will investigate the use of semiconducting wires, carbon nanotubes and spintronics or electron spin." (IMEC describes itself as "Europe's leading independent research center" in the fields of microelectronics and nanotechnology.)

22 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. So... by Brandon+One · · Score: 5, Funny

    Size really does matter afterall. Who knew?

  2. Translation: by Power+Everywhere · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Faster, cooler chips about a decade from now when the whole chip paradigm has shifted. Nanotech will still have an application, but not as a replacement for current methods. Instead nanotech will be integrated into new manufacturing technology from the ground up.

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    1. Re:Translation: by kilonad · · Score: 2, Interesting

      How many cores will there be on a single chip a decade from now? About 64-128 if Moore's law holds (remember, it's the number of transistors, not the speed). I highly doubt we'll see more than 4-8 cores on desktop computers, even given a whole decade. There will come a point where adding more cores won't be economical or the sensible answer for more computing power, just as making chips faster isn't the answer right now. The paradigm will then shift towards either making the individual cores smaller in order to pack more on a single chip and/or making each individual core run faster and cooler. Nanotechnology is positioning itself as the answer ten years from now, you just can't see it. Putting any more than 4 cores in the same form factor as today's CPUs will absolutely require this kind of technology.

  3. Finally! by JorDan+Clock · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Finally an application for nanotechnology that's getting some attention that doesn't involve little machines crawling around my brain and floating through my blood stream.

  4. Well nothing yet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    All the site says is that they are investigating this.

    IMEC program participants will investigate the use of semiconducting wires, carbon nanotubes and spintronics and, at the same time, develop the metrology and theoretical approach required as a backbone for implementation of the new methodologies.

    I know several other places that have been doing this for a while now. How is this any news at all?

  5. Electron spin versus magnetic charge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    We've heard this all before ... in hard drives! Back in 1999, manufacturers started using electron spin rather than magnetic charge to store data. From the article ... "Magnetoelectronics manipulates electrons in semiconductors via electron spin, rather than charge." Most hard drives today are GMR (giant magnetoresistance), or technology derived from GMR.

    So it's not too wild to think that they'll be able to do it in RAM and such as well.

  6. Ehh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Big IC manufacturers hate adopting radically new and risky technologies before they are forced to. I wouldn't expect CMOS to be phased out for a good while. Remember CMOS logic was designed in the early 60s, but most IC manufacturers continued to use PMOS and NMOS chips until the late 80s and early 90s when the size and number of MOSFETs going into ICs caused far too much power dissipation using NMOS/PMOS...

    1. Re:Ehh... by wass · · Score: 2, Informative
      spintronics is one of the quickest technologies to go from lab to marketplace, second only to the transistor.

      IC companies have embraced spintronics, your hard-disk read heads now employ GMR, for instance. IBM and other research labs are spending big $$$ to figure out how to make this technology easily fabricateable. This is NOT traditional CMOS, you can only shrink CMOS down so far, this is for moving beyond.

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    2. Re:Ehh... by wass · · Score: 2, Informative
      GMR is certainly spintronics, polarity of electron spin affects the transport through the multilayer. It doesn't matter if you measure the spin of the electrons used in the resistance measurement, you're _effectively_ reading the spins of the electrons in the two magnetic layers (up to an overall parity), as determined through its giant magnetoresistance.

      It seems you are trying to make a semantical argument about this. So don't just take my word for it, see what the Institute of Physics have to say about it as well.

      --

      make world, not war

    3. Re:Ehh... by Big_Breaker · · Score: 2, Informative

      CMOS "IS" NMOS and PMOS.

      CMOS stands for "c"omplementary "m"etal "o"xide "s"emiconductor. What's complementary you ask? Well they use pmos and nmos gates in series between ground and the rails (the voltage/power source) it all the logic stages. The input gates of the nmos and pmos gates are tied together to drive them simulateously. That means that both gates are never totally "active" and power never shoots straight to ground (or through a resistor). Obviouly that saves a ton of power.

      Anyhow the point is that it basically didn't take ANY new tech to do cmos - just using pmos and nmos together. That just takes adding some doping stages for n and p type semiconductors in one process.

      Nanotech means largely scrapping the old fabs that cost billions each. Not going to happen any time soon.

  7. Nanotech in colleges by BlindSpy · · Score: 3, Informative

    Purdue University is making a huge effort to be one of the leading Nanotechnology schools: http://discoverypark.e-enterprise.purdue.edu/wps/p ortal

    --
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    1. Re:Nanotech in colleges by BlindSpy · · Score: 2, Informative

      My bad - here's the link: here

      --
      Whoever dies with the most toys wins.
  8. You dont know what you are talking about... by imsabbel · · Score: 3, Informative

    GMR discs still store the data magnetically.
    The MR and GMR effect only replaces the normal inductance coils in the read-head. While older heads registred a voltage spike because of the magnetic flux change in the coil while the data-layer moved below the head, the new heads have a multilayer material that has a spin-sensitive resistance, so the local magnetic field created by the data on the disc spin-polarizes the electrons IN THE HEAD (nothing on the disc) and thus created a vast difference in head resistance depending on the magnetic field.

    So the only difference is in how to get the MAGNETICALLY stored data back... Nothing changed in the storage per se.

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  9. nano inflation by kipsate · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The term "nanotechnology" is becoming a bit inflated. Companies know that merely mentioning the word nanotechnology in a press-release ensures a lot of extra attention. It is kind of sad that good ol' Slashdot seems to fall for this cheap trick as well.

    Not too long ago, nanotechnology was about wonderful fantasies of small machines at nano-level assembling molecules or even medicines. Too bad that simple physics prevent this from becoming a reality (the resistance of air at nano-level is too large, for example). Now, nanotechnology is about punching very small holes in metal.

    Maybe it is about time that everyone realizes that nanotechnology is not as exiting as it used to be.

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    My karma ran over your dogma
    1. Re:nano inflation by l3v1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Too bad that simple physics prevent this from becoming a reality (the resistance of air at nano-level is too large, for example)

      In many cases that is not a problem. E.g. you make metal gathering proteins to be released in a liquid, or proteins able to detect and contain specific other proteins in a blood stream, and I could go on and on.

      Nanotechnology doesn't just mean to be able to manufacture chips on smaller scales. Another very much more important aspect is what we could do with specificly "manufactured" proteins in medicine. And this is not a such far dream, there are people working on this, even some which I know, let alone those whom I don't.

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    2. Re:nano inflation by discontinuity · · Score: 2, Informative

      Wired ran an interesting article about this. Not a huge surprise, but "nano" has replaced "micro" as the tech buzz word du jour. I think players in the industry realize this and the consumer base will come around in due time -- just the way we have come to accept micro-this, i-that and e-everything.

      For anyone interested in the political/institutional side of science, the Wired article is a good read:

      http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/drexler .html

    3. Re:nano inflation by Goldsmith · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Semiconductors were discovered in 1874, and it wasn't until 1948 that the transistor was discovered, it took a few more decades to really commercialize it. On the whole, roughly 100 years from the discovery of semiconductors to widespread commercial use.

      We first developed a device (STM) to image and move individual atoms in 1987. It would not surprise me in the least if it took 100 years for us to come up with something which would be widely commercially available based on atomic scale manufacturing. Have some patience.

      I agree that the term "nano" gets thrown around a lot more than it should be, but how do you know one of these nano-gadgets won't be leading the field in the future? I realize that fact that new people and ideas have entered the field pisses some people off, but if an organic chemist wants to call his work on artificial muscle polymers "nanotechnology" I can't find a reason to argue with him.

      On the other hand, critisizing the Millipede project for not being "cool enough" is like complaining that the Manhattan project failed to develop the H-bomb. It's a major accomplishment which puts us one step closer in that direction to industrial molecular assembly. Read that article you linked to again, and perhaps a review of Atomic Force Microscopy or Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy. The Millipede project IS nanotechnolgy, and it IS going toward that dream of nano-level assembly.

  10. CMOS? by Scrameustache · · Score: 2, Informative

    For those of us who haven't had their 3rd cup of cofee yet, that would be "complementary metal oxide semiconductor".

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    You can't take the sky from me...

  11. education by drakyri · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If this happens soon then it'll cause some trouble; colleges generally don't teach nanotech because it's still very much under development. I'm in a program right now that focuses on CMOS integrated circuit design ... am I going to be obsolete before I get out of grad school?

    I guess this happens whenever things shift to a new technology, but still, it's sort of depressing.

  12. We're already surrounded by nanotechnology... by hot+soldering+iron · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's called "biology".

    There are several different ways of getting to a functional nano assembler, and one of the current favorites is taking parts of functioning devices (virii and bacteria) and reassemble them into desired configurations.

    The only difference between a "nano" device and a virus is who designed it, Dr. Putz or Mother Nature, (Mom built hers using trial and error, lots of "bugs").

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  13. Crappy cameras by memodude · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Cool! Now we can have crappy cameras that are even smaller!

  14. Processoers, the unknown nanotechnology by strider_starslayer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Seriously; all this talk about nanotechnology, is mostly bunk; we ALLREADY have nanotechnology, most of you are using it RIGHT NOW!

    The modern computer processor has bridges that are etched in silicone, a mere 70nm across; that's right 70 nanometers. So instead of saying nanotechnology like it something strange that has never been done before the article should say 'new chips to use nanotubes and spintronix(sp?)'

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